---
title: "A Minnesota Metal Finishing Plant Is Closing and 55…"
canonical: "https://www.metaintro.com/blog/lincoln-industries-pine-island-plant-closure-55-jobs"
language: "en"
author: "drashtigarach"
published: "2026-09-10T06:31:02.000Z"
modified: "2026-10-02T19:47:51.959Z"
---

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# A Minnesota Metal Finishing Plant Is Closing and 55 Workers Found Out Before the Town Did

Lincoln Industries is closing its Pine Island plant and cutting 55 jobs in two phases through April 2027. What the staged timeline means for the workers there.

[![Drashti Garach](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:40:40/q:72/plain/images/5719d740-e510-42bc-8017-e040d145f35f_1766029465094.png)Drashti Garach @DrashtiGarach](/blog/author/drashtigarach)

[September 10, 2026](/blog/archive/2026/09)10 min read

![A row of industrial electroplating tanks with hanging racks of metal components](https://cdn.metaintro.com/rs:fill:1200:675/q:78/plain/images/10206-alt-hero.png)

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## What happened

[Rochester's Post Bulletin](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees) reports that Lincoln Industries filed a federal WARN notice with Minnesota this week for the permanent closure of its Pine Island site, [laying off 55 employees across two phases](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees). [KTTC](https://www.kttc.com/2026/09/08/pine-island-metal-finishing-company-lay-off-55-workers/) confirms the notice came through the [Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development](https://www.kttc.com/2026/09/08/pine-island-metal-finishing-company-lay-off-55-workers/) and describes the same two-phase shutdown of the [75,000 square foot plant at 67 Fifth Street NE](https://www.kttc.com/2026/09/08/pine-island-metal-finishing-company-lay-off-55-workers/).

The timeline is longer than most closures. [Most employees lose their jobs by 29 October 2026](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees) in the first phase, and [the site closes completely with all employment ending by 1 April 2027](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees). [KTTC](https://www.kttc.com/2026/09/08/pine-island-metal-finishing-company-lay-off-55-workers/) reports the same [two dates](https://www.kttc.com/2026/09/08/pine-island-metal-finishing-company-lay-off-55-workers/). That means one group has roughly seven weeks and another has about six months.

The parent company is not a small operation. [Lincoln Industries describes itself](https://lincolnindustries.com/) as [the largest and most diverse privately held metal finishing company in North America](https://lincolnindustries.com/), with precision electroplating at its core and expanding coating capabilities, a heavy-duty truck components business covering bumpers, grab bars and heat management, and a [new LED display division launched in July 2025](https://lincolnindustries.com/). The [Post Bulletin reporting](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees) reports it runs [multiple facilities in Nebraska and one in New Berlin, Wisconsin](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees).

[Post Bulletin reporting](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees) quotes Pine Island economic development director Mitch Massman saying [no one from Lincoln's leadership team reached out to the EDA to inform us that this was coming](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees).

That is the sentence that changes how you read the rest. A WARN notice is a legal filing, not a phone call, and a town can find out about the end of a factory from a state database.

That distinction has practical consequences for the workers, not just hurt feelings for the town. Local economic development offices are usually the fastest route to retraining money, employer introductions and hiring events, and they work best when they get a few weeks of warning. An office learning about a closure at the same time as the newspaper has lost the head start it would normally use on behalf of the people affected, and it has to build a response from a standing start instead.

## Where the coverage agrees, and where it splits

The facts line up cleanly. Both [the Post Bulletin account](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees) and [KTTC](https://www.kttc.com/2026/09/08/pine-island-metal-finishing-company-lay-off-55-workers/) report [55 workers, two phases, 29 October and 1 April, and a 75,000 square foot plant](https://www.kttc.com/2026/09/08/pine-island-metal-finishing-company-lay-off-55-workers/) that Lincoln Industries acquired in 2015 when it bought DS Manufacturing.

The split is between what was said in 2015 and what is happening now. [Post Bulletin reporting](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees) records the site had [87 employees when it was acquired in 2015](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees), that the purchase was the company's [first investment outside Nebraska](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees), and that the chief executive at the time promised full-capacity operations and workforce growth of [at least 50 percent](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees). Instead the headcount went from 87 to 55 and then to zero. Read only this week's filing and it is a routine closure. Read it against the 2015 promise and it is eleven years of a commitment quietly unwinding.

None of that means anybody lied in 2015. Promises made at an acquisition are genuine intentions rather than guarantees, and eleven years is long enough for markets, customers and owners to change completely. The useful lesson is narrower and more durable, which is that a commitment made at the point of purchase has a short shelf life, and that a worker weighing whether to stay somewhere should watch what an acquirer does in years three and four rather than what it says in year one.

There is also a gap between the company's public story and this plant's outcome. Lincoln Industries' own site is full of expansion, describing [growth in truck components, expanded in-house coating and a new venture in LED displays](https://lincolnindustries.com/). None of that contradicts a closure. It just means the work is being consolidated somewhere else rather than disappearing, and Pine Island is not where the company chose to put it.

For the individual that is genuinely better news than a company in trouble, and it is worth understanding why. Work that is being consolidated still exists, which means the skills that did it are still wanted, and often by the same employer in a different state. Asking directly whether a transfer is possible costs nothing and is refused far less often than people expect, particularly in a specialised trade where the receiving site has its own hiring problem.

The [U.S. Department of Labor](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/layoffs/employers) requires [60 days notice before a plant closing or mass layoff](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/layoffs/employers) and directs employers to notify the state Dislocated Worker Unit as quickly as possible.

Measured against that floor, the filing is comfortably early for the October group and very early for the April group. Notice periods and courtesy are different things, and this closure has one without the other.

The generous notice is worth taking seriously rather than treating as the least the company could do. Six months of employment while searching is the single largest advantage anybody in a closure can have, and it is one many workers in worse situations never get. It is entirely reasonable to be annoyed about how this was communicated and to make full use of the time it bought at the same time.

The wider industry is not in decline, which makes the local loss sharper. The [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag332.htm) puts fabricated metal product manufacturing employment at [1,460,800 in August 2026, up from 1,448,400 in May](https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag332.htm), with [average hourly earnings of 33.70 dollars](https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag332.htm). The subsector includes [coating, engraving, heat treating and allied activities as its own industry group](https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag332.htm), which is exactly what this plant does. The skills are in demand nationally. The demand is simply not in Pine Island.

That is the sentence that should shape the next six months for anyone at that site. A skills problem and a geography problem look identical from inside a closing plant and require completely opposite responses. If the trade were shrinking, retraining would be the answer. Because it is not, the answer is a wider search radius, and possibly a conversation about relocation that would have felt unthinkable a month ago and may look very different against a national picture of rising demand.

## What this means for your job search

Work out which phase you are in before you do anything else. [Seven weeks and six months](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees) are completely different situations, and the mistake people make in staged closures is assuming the later date applies to them. If you are in the October group, treat this week as the start. If you are in the April group, you have the rare luxury of searching while still drawing a wage, which is the best position anyone in a closure can be in.

Then use the state machinery early. The [federal guidance](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/layoffs/employers) is explicit that employers must notify the state Dislocated Worker Unit as fast as possible so support can reach people before separation rather than after, and the local economic development office is already engaged, with [Massman saying the first priority is working out how to help people make their next step](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees). A town of this size with 55 people to place will move faster than any state programme on its own.

Name your skills by process, not by employer. Metal finishing is [electroplating, coating, heat treating and engraving](https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag332.htm), and those are regulated, chemical-adjacent, quality-controlled processes that transfer straight into aerospace, medical device, defence and heavy truck supply chains. A CV that says the name of a plant that no longer exists is worth far less than one that lists the processes you ran and the tolerances you held. [Skills for your manufacturing resume](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/manufacturing-resume-skills) is the fastest way to make that switch, and [machinist certification](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/machinist-certification) is the credential that gets shop floor experience past a recruiter who has never seen a plating line.

My argument for the April group specifically is to spend two of those six months on a credential rather than all six on applications. National demand for this exact subsector is [growing rather than shrinking](https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag332.htm), so the constraint on you is not the market, it is proving what you can do to an employer that has never heard of your plant. Six months of paid notice is the best training window most people ever get, and almost nobody uses it that way.

The reason so few people use it is not laziness, it is that studying while you still have a job feels like admitting the job is over. It is worth pushing past that. The certification finished in February is worth far more than the same certification started in April, and the difference between those two outcomes is entirely a decision made in the first fortnight after the notice lands.

Treat the next two weeks as the part of this you actually control, because most of the rest of it you do not.

## Related Articles

- [Skills for Your Manufacturing Resume](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/manufacturing-resume-skills)
- [Machinist Certification and What It Changes About Your Job Prospects](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/machinist-certification)
- [How Much Does an Industrial Painter Make in 2026](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/how-much-does-industrial-painter-make)
- [Welding Jobs Salary and the Highest Paying Positions](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/welding-jobs-salary-and-highest-paying-positions)
- [US Manufacturing Has a Worker Problem, Key Warnings From McKinsey's Report](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/us-manufacturing-worker-shortage-mckinsey-report)
- [Google, Ford and BlackRock Bet Big on Skilled Trades Jobs](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/google-ford-and-blackrock-bet-big-on-skilled-trades-jobs)
- [Best Jobs for a Career Change and Why Transferable Skills Matter More](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/best-jobs-for-a-career-change)
- [How to Job Search With AI After a Layoff](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/job-search-with-ai-after-a-layoff)
- [Getting Laid Off Permanently Changes How You Think About Work](https://www.metaintro.com/blog/getting-laid-off-changes-how-you-think-about-work)

## People Also Asked

### Q: How many jobs are going at Lincoln Industries in Pine Island?

A: [Rochester's Post Bulletin](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees) reports 55 employees will be laid off in the permanent closure of the Pine Island facility, filed as a federal WARN notice with Minnesota this week. [KTTC](https://www.kttc.com/2026/09/08/pine-island-metal-finishing-company-lay-off-55-workers/) confirms the notice came through the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development for the 75,000 square foot plant on Fifth Street NE.

### Q: When exactly does the plant close?

A: In two phases. [Post Bulletin reporting](https://www.postbulletin.com/business/pine-island-manufacturer-to-close-and-lay-off-55-employees) puts most employees lose their jobs by 29 October 2026, with the site closing completely and all employment ending by 1 April 2027. The [U.S. Department of Labor](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/layoffs/employers) sets the federal minimum at 60 days notice before a plant closing or mass layoff, so both phases sit well ahead of that floor.

### Q: Is metal finishing work still in demand elsewhere?

A: Nationally, yes. The [U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics](https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag332.htm) puts fabricated metal product manufacturing employment at 1,460,800 in August 2026, up from 1,448,400 in May, with average hourly earnings of 33.70 dollars. Coating, engraving and heat treating form their own industry group inside that subsector, so the processes this plant ran are counted as a growing category.

Looking for your next opportunity? Metal finishing and precision process experience is wanted across aerospace, medical device and heavy truck supply chains, and the people who start before the plant winds down get seen first. [Metaintro](https://www.metaintro.com) matches manufacturing, maintenance and quality talent to employers hiring across the Upper Midwest. [Create a free profile](https://www.metaintro.com/signup) and start mapping your next move today.

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